New Fallout 3 screens

[random n00b]

When I have control of a squad or a small group though some sort of non-first person view is pretty essential.

Operation Flashpoint, SWAT, R6, etc...

 

All you really need is a good set of tools to control and order your squaddies around. Perspective is irrelevant - unless what you want is not squadmates, but multiple *player* characters.

[Jorian Drake]

BIO > BETH

 

3rd Person > 1st Person

So sayeth the wise Volourn

 

---

 

 

(well...atleast this one was a wise comment )

[Slowtrain]

When I have control of a squad or a small group though some sort of non-first person view is pretty essential.

Operation Flashpoint, SWAT, R6, etc...

 

All you really need is a good set of tools to control and order your squaddies around. Perspective is irrelevant - unless what you want is not squadmates, but multiple *player* characters.

 

 

If I have to direct all the actions of the group I really can't do it in a first person view. It's just too difficult for me.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Republic Commando worked decently... though the commands were basic.

[RangerSG]

Well, if there's going to be NPC party members (a debatable concept in a BethSoft game), then not only will they have to learn how to give commands...but they need to solve their abysmal engine pathfinding AI issues that have plagued them since at least Morrowind.

[mkreku]

There's a new preview out (some magazine called PSM) and one of the details they've unveiled is going to make the "Oblivion with gunz" crowd very happy: apparently there will be a robotic horse in the game. Uhm, yeah.

 

I am trying to stay positive, but Bethesda are working hard to turn me into one of you annoying whiners.

[RangerSG]

There's a new preview out (some magazine called PSM) and one of the details they've unveiled is going to make the "Oblivion with gunz" crowd very happy: apparently there will be a robotic horse in the game. Uhm, yeah.

 

I am trying to stay positive, but Bethesda are working hard to turn me into one of you annoying whiners.

 

At the risk of defending Bethsoft, which I hate doing, I do have to ask why a robotic horse is so much more offensive than a robotic dog, like FO2 had? That's one of those things I'll have to see IG before I make a decision on. Is it probably hokey? yeah. But is it any more hokey than robodog? *shrugs*

Edited July 7, 2008 by RangerSG

[Tigranes]

To be fair, no, a robotic horse is not confirmed: a previewer saw the blueprints for a robotic horse in the loading screens and assumed this. It could actually be in the game, yes, but... well, I do have a low opinion of Bethesda, but would even they do something so stupid? I mean, a robotic horse?

 

Edit: RangerSG: The problem is that this is "'Giddyup buttercup', a robot pony for little girls.".

 

The parts I thought were really stupid in that recent preview were, though: (see http://www.nma-fallout.com/ for source)

 

- "If you cause a ruckus near an Enclave-controlled area, these Vertibirds in and drop off reinforcements"

 

Apparently we've got a fully organised military organisation which has the resources to just vertibird in and out everywhere because some guy and a dog is attacking them.

 

- "This one is called Galaxy News, presented by a DJ called Three Dawg and broadcast from a secure bunker in the heart of DC. Dawg reports on current events between records."

 

So your radio is going to give you Ink Spots and other '50s-ish songs, then, uh, Three Dawg will buzz in and give you 'da w3rd on the latest akshun! Possibly with lots of swear words, blunt parody about pornography/drugs and whatnot?

 

- "We left Megaton, chose a random direction (west) and walked. And it didn't take long to find paying work. Bigtown used to be a sprawl of suburban housing, but now it's a makeshift fortress. Walls made of debris, car shells and a single, pathetic guard watches over the entrance with a rusting hunting rifle. Inside we learn that the Supermutants - giant, violent monsters spawned from the fallout of the nuclear war - have kidnapped some of their people, including a vital medic. We agree to rescue them, but only in exchange for bottle caps, Fallout's bizarre currency. The Supermutants, we learn, have set up a camp in a place called Germantown."

 

Nothing wrong with this, at all, I like it. Except we're going from Bigtown to Germantown. I mean, okay. We had Junktown. Where everything was junk. But Germantown? I mean, seriously, that's the best name you can come up with?

 

I dunno. They aren't big things. I just find it so odd that such a high-budget title by such a high-profile studio which has made RPGs for so long, comes up with... Germantown.

[RangerSG]

Tigranes,

 

Germantown, PA is a real place. So I can see them using it since the game occurs in the eastern US. No different from using Redding in FO2.

 

And again, I don't see the difference, robo buttercup would be just as bad as robo lassie. It's hokey. But until one sees it IG, there's no way to know 'how' hokey it is. That said, it's not confirmed, and being spun up over rumored items is silly anyway.

[random n00b]

Edit: RangerSG: The problem is that this is "'Giddyup buttercup', a robot pony for little girls.".

I lol'ed. Probably wouldn't be too impressed to find it running around in-game though.

 

 

Apparently we've got a fully organised military organisation which has the resources to just vertibird in and out everywhere because some guy and a dog is attacking them.

Yeah. The Enclave in FO2 was already more than capable of doing this, and in fact, it was supposed to happen if you fooled around with the computer in the nuclear reactor. The vertibird appearing proper was cut out, though.

[H]

Apparently we've got a fully organised military organisation which has the resources to just vertibird in and out everywhere because some guy and a dog is attacking them.

Yeah. The Enclave in FO2 was already more than capable of doing this, and in fact, it was supposed to happen if you fooled around with the computer in the nuclear reactor. The vertibird appearing proper was cut out, though.

I may be nitpicking here, but the Enclave HQ were kinda blown up at the end of Fallout 2.

[random n00b]

Yeah, that may pose a bit of a problem. Has it been made known which timeframe does the game take place in?

[H]

Yeah, that may pose a bit of a problem. Has it been made known which timeframe does the game take place in?

Around 35 years after the events of Fallout 2.

[Tigranes]

Germantown, PA is a real place. So I can see them using it since the game occurs in the eastern US. No different from using Redding in FO2.

 

Heh. American placenames never cease to surprise me. Fair enough, I will have to retract my frothing, then.

 

About the Enclave, unless my memory is very very wrong, there are allusions within FO2 itself that says the Enclave had various spread out outposts farther East. I really don't see them moving wholesale to bloody Washington DC and still having enough materials to Vertibird everywhere though, that's the point. You blow up their big offshore base, kill the president, Horrigan, etc etc etc, and after 30 years you find them helicoptering everywhere pouring in army-size troops all the way on the East Coast? In as sparse a postapoc setting as Fallout?

[Starwars]

The thing that kinda bothers me about all this, is that I actually found the news of moving to the East Coast a great move (one of the first newsbits released I think) as I thought it could allow Bethesda to excercise creativity there (as well as don't worry to much about not breaking lore). Of course I was also hoping that they were gonna keep gameplay more similar to the older games.

 

But now they're dragging these factions over from the West Coast to the East Coast, and I think it'll be a rather hard thing to swallow.

[random n00b]

About the Enclave, unless my memory is very very wrong, there are allusions within FO2 itself that says the Enclave had various spread out outposts farther East. I really don't see them moving wholesale to bloody Washington DC and still having enough materials to Vertibird everywhere though, that's the point. You blow up their big offshore base, kill the president, Horrigan, etc etc etc, and after 30 years you find them helicoptering everywhere pouring in army-size troops all the way on the East Coast? In as sparse a postapoc setting as Fallout?

"Sparse" what?

 

It seems that in the Fallout setting, the only ones without access to hi-tech gimmicks were the tribals and townspeoples of the first areas the player explores. BoS, the Shi, CoC, Hubologists, the Enclave... not to mention all the places like Sierra Army Depot. And man, that's just on the West Coast.

 

But yeah, the Prez got whacked with the oil derrick, and that should have put the Enclave out of comission. I'd rather they didn't recycle baddies instead of making up new ones. The Chinese?

[Tigranes]

*shrug* The original Fallouts had their (numerous, outrageous) indulgences, but I always considered the world at large to be quite sparse. The Enclave was generally limited to their own base, and the Brotherhood of Steel were never big - and always dwindling, themselves mostly ruined and forgotten, by the time the player got there. In practice you never had big squads of Enclaves or BoS or whoever running around fighting big firefights with supermutants, which is what is being hinted at in Washington.

 

But no, it's not a big gripe from me. I was happy with FO2 having all those whacky things - its more about delivery. The idea of having even robotic horses wouldn't really bother me if the delivery was on target. That's how I look at things. I was fine with BoS because you didn't actually see them trotting around, they were mostly gone. I was fine with Enclave as a limited thread. I wasn't fine with Hubologists and the Chinese because they were ill-defined and seemed to be planted there just to add 'colour'. And equally, the reason I don't want to see BoS and Enclave in FO3 is because of poor delivery: they have no reason to bet here, and not only that, there seems to be a possibility they'll run amok like some sort of army. I mean, they might as well create some of their own lore..

[Bass-GameMaster]

Is it true that this game well be hard to understand if you haven't played the previous "Fall Outs"??

[Tigranes]

No, not at all. Bethesda's design philosophy has always been quite friendly to people new to a series.

[Slowtrain]

Todd answered a few more questions yesterday:

 

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=856489

[RangerSG]

Interesting. The bar screenshot was very nice, I think. And although I've come to raise an eyebrow at BethHype, I'm generally impressed by the interview that they're treating the game seriously.

 

On the trait/perk issue, I can understand what they're saying for most perks, though I don't entirely agree. Small Frame (which I often liked to choose) would always be a creation choice. You can't go back and say; "Oh, I want to be petite." That said, I can see many traits being perk-like. Chem-resistant/reliant developing over time, for instance as you use for chems and either become addicted or acquaire a tolerance to them. So I understand the choice, though I'm sure this means certain traits are gone, or they'll have "choose only at level 1" perks; which it sounded like he was saying they don't.

 

So I'm officially cautiously optimistic. Nothing in there seemed horrible. If they used the Oblivion dialogue system and actually did make the NPCs smarter, it would be a viable approach.

[Starwars]

The best news of the interview for me was the screenshot of the Bar. Very moody I thought. I know some griped about the actual graphical quality, but I can't say I give a damn. The mood is near perfect for me.

 

The rest was not encouraging for me though. While I think it's pretty informative, there were nothing in there that I would particularly qualify as good news (well, AI is supposedly better but that is pretty much the least of my expectations so...). Especially the bit about dungeons being "common" now is... disheartening I feel. A dungeon is of course not necessarily bad (The Glow comes to mind), but if they're common, then I suspect there will be plenty corridor-shooting.

Traits/perks is not the end of the world for me, but yet another change that I feel is totally unnecessary and lowers the overall bar just a bit more yet again.

 

The bit about skills affecting damage more and not aiming as much makes me wonder how bigger and more powerful/damaging weapons will be handled vs smaller guns. Considering how Oblivion is balanced I'm quite honestly expecting the worst. Still feel that jamming these skills-sets into a firstperson game will be an excercise in frustration and the wrong way to go about it.

 

Nice of them to answer questions in an informative way though. But yeah, not much good news for me I fear.

[Wrath of Dagon]

What's truly outrageous is that they show an PPSh sub-machine gun and call it a shotgun! And how did a Russian gun wind up in PA America anyway!? Have these people no shame about historical accuracy?!

[Slowtrain]

What's truly outrageous is that they show an PPSh sub-machine gun and call it a shotgun! And how did a Russian gun wind up in PA America anyway!? Have these people no shame about historical accuracy?!

 

 

lol. Now that you mention it, they do look similar. I just took it as an odd-looking shotgun with a drum magazine that one of the devs invented by googling some reference material. SOmethign intended to be cobbled out of left over parts, perhaps. I figured the drum magazine might be an in-game upgrade.

 

 

edit: They are similar, but appear to have different dimensions between the trigger guard and magazine. In the screenshot the magazine appears to mount further down the barrel. It is a little hard to tell though because the extreme foreshortening in the screenshot makes judging the distance somewhat difficult.

Edited July 8, 2008 by CrashGirl

[random n00b]

On the trait/perk issue, I can understand what they're saying for most perks, though I don't entirely agree. Small Frame (which I often liked to choose) would always be a creation choice. You can't go back and say; "Oh, I want to be petite." That said, I can see many traits being perk-like. Chem-resistant/reliant developing over time, for instance as you use for chems and either become addicted or acquaire a tolerance to them. So I understand the choice, though I'm sure this means certain traits are gone, or they'll have "choose only at level 1" perks; which it sounded like he was saying they don't.

Yeah, it looks like the really good stuff (Gifted, Small Frame...) is gone. We're probably stuck with some 100 unremarkable traits that aren't a big deal. Forget about Sniper and Slayer, and welcome to the world of inconsequential choice where differences are purely cosmetic. Quantity over quality, obviously.

 

But don't despair, there's beards!

 

Bah.

 

EDIT: Also, is it just me, or are they making it incredibly easy for a mod that allows you to shoot kids to be made?

 

EDIT2: And there's a level 20 cap because...?

Edited July 8, 2008 by random n00b